Scepters

Scepters are not class specific, but they are most often used by Paladins. Scepters are best for spell-casting Paladins, and are the weapon of choice for Hammerdins in Diablo II. Hammerdins being nerfed in the Expansion, you'll not often see them in D2X. Sorceresses and even Necromancers occasionally use scepters in D2, for the potential bonuses such as +mana and faster cast. Scepters aren't much used for melee in D2, owing to their low damage.

Scepters are a type of blunt weapon and do 150% damage to the undead, and coupled with their increased damage in the Expansion they should be more useful as melee weapons.

Inherent Bonuses: Scepters can have +1-3 skill points to up to three Paladin skills from any of his skill trees.

Elite items are only found in the Expansion. Elite scepters are dropped in late Nightmare, and then all through Hell difficulty. The three types of elite scepters are all basically even in damage, when weapon speed is factored in, making the choice of which to use mostly a function of the item affixes.

Damage Bonus: This determines how you multiply the item damage by your stats to reach the actual damage. All scepters are 100 Str which means that every point you have in strength adds .1% of your weapon's damage as a bonus.

Item Level: Used in many in-game calculations. Monsters must be of this level to drop the item, and it factors in when you get to gamble for this item type as well.

Weapon Speed: A relative comparison to other weapons of the same type. 0 is the base -10, -20, etc is faster, 10, 20, etc is slower, always in increments of 10. Each 10 is equivalent to an SIAS item.

Range: Goes from 1 (least) to 5 (most), and is identical for all weapon types. I.E. a 3 sword = a 3 spear = a 3 hammer. All scepters have 1 range, same as most one-handed melee weapons.

* All Exceptional items are Clvl 25 required in Diablo II. In the Expansion some are slightly less, but none exceed 25.
Values in () are figures for the Expansion that differ from the old Diablo II stats. Scepters do more damage in the Expansion than they do in Diablo II.

Elite items are only found in the Expansion. Elite scepters are dropped in late Nightmare, and then all through Hell difficulty. The three types of elite scepters are all basically even in damage, when weapon speed is factored in, making the choice of which to use mostly a function of the item affixes.